


Think of Me

by mythicait



Series: Niloy Oneshots [3]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death, F/M, Final battle against Helis, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:47:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22591255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythicait/pseuds/mythicait
Summary: This was just a product of me being horrified at the thought of a friend writing angst so I wrote angst in retaliation.This is just a little snippet of a very angsty take on Aloy’s final battle with Helis. In this canon divergence, Nil has fully become Aloy’s hunting partner and he travels with her as she makes her discoveries and hunts down Hades. There’s some tension between them but they’ve never actually done anything about it (mostly because Nil is awkward with relationships and Aloy wants to wait until her life makes sense again to do anything).
Relationships: Aloy/Nil (Horizon: Zero Dawn), Niloy
Series: Niloy Oneshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1506413
Comments: 24
Kudos: 48





	Think of Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenofkadara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofkadara/gifts).



"What is it?"

“The end. Or how it begins anyway.”

The explosion lit up the sky and Aloy felt the stones of the Sun Palace shake underneath her. She heard Avad gasp beside her but she kept her eyes focused on the horizon. Through the smoke, she saw them come. 

Deathbringer after deathbringer, emerging from the black clouds surrounded by corruptors and every red lit metal being she had ever fought. 

“The deathbringers you spoke of?” Avad asked.

Without answering, Aloy turned to the men gathered on the balcony. They stood still, watching the oncoming horrors that she had become all too used to seeing. “To the guns. To the guns! Now!”

It wasn't until their king backed her up that they listened and Aloy rejoined the two men still standing at the railing as the soldiers rushed to grab their firespitters and their cannons. Despite the doubt clawing at her insides, Aloy reassured Avad when he questioned how well the cannons would work. 

When she looked to her other side, her eyes met Nil’s and she saw that he knew what she did. 

The cannons wouldn’t be able to stop all of them. 

Every beat of her heart seemed to shout that the true battle was finally here. That her war between Hades and herself would end today and the thought terrified her as much as the truth of her heritage had. Aloy wasn’t ready, wasn’t strong enough to face him and win. 

Her eyes had strayed back to the violent scene playing out below her until warm fingers caught her chin. Swirling silver eyes met hers and Aloy swallowed at the serious cant to Nil’s features. For a moment, his eyes wandered to rest on her lips and her breath caught. Instead of leaning in, though, a smirk tugged at the edges of his mouth and his eyes were once again playful and light when he met her gaze.

“Ready, huntress?”

She huffed out a quiet laugh, trying to ignore the fingers still resting against her skin. “Ready for which part?”

His little smirk transformed into a wolfish grin. “Ready to meet death once again with me until the battlefield is strewn with our enemies and we stand victorious atop their metal bones.”

The knot in her stomach loosened and she met his feral expression with a smile of her own.

She had forgotten that she wouldn’t be fighting alone. 

“Nil-”

Another explosion rocked them, closer and rougher than the first. Debris blasted out from one of the walkways below them and Aloy leaned over the side in time to see some of their soldiers thrown off the edge to a deadly landing.

The air felt charged like it did when she was facing down a stormbird and Aloy watched the open hole created by the blast. A large figure, crowned in black and crimson feathers and far too familiar, emerged from the depths. 

Helis.

Aloy’s heart screamed at her to throw herself down there and send her spear through his chest but she stamped down her reckless instincts. When Avad put his hand to his sword, she caught it. “Rally the Vanguard and send reinforcements.” 

Avad protested. “He will cut you down!” 

“Not this time,” she said fiercely.

She could tell he wanted to argue more but he did as she said. As he left, she heard Nil’s deep voice in her ear. “You don’t really think we need reinforcements, do you, huntress? We’ve a bow and a knife. Between the two of us, his blood will stain these stones before he even has the chance to admire your deadly grace.” 

Aloy rolled her eyes as she drew her grappling hook but Nil only took the chance to grunt and look pensively off into the distance as they approached the edge.

“Is it better to drain him slowly? Let the dread set in as he sees his death approaching in the guise of a fiery angel?”

Aloy’s cheeks heated at his description of her. “Shut up, Nil.”

With that, she flung herself over the railing and rappelled down to meet her father’s murderer, Nil only a heartbeat behind her. 

  
The stairway they found themselves on was crawling with Shadow Carja and- there, on the far side, Helis. 

Nil’s fingers brushed against her arm as she drew her bow and Aloy gave him a small smile. That was all they needed before they launched themselves at their enemies. 

Taking advantage of the blaze barrels scattered around from the battle preparations, Aloy killed each of the warriors in her way until only Helis was left. When she turned to face him, she found Nil already locked hilt to hilt with the zealot. 

Helis was taller and he used that and the longer reach of his sword to bear down on Nil, using his brute strength to try to crush him. Before he could succeed, Nil disengaged and spun around to slash at Helis’s unarmored side. He only managed a shallow slice but the blood dripped down Helis’s side and he roared in anger, striking out at Aloy’s partner.

Her hands moved before she could think, nocking an arrow and loosing it as his sword came down. Her aim rang true and the arrow found its home in his upper arm, buried deep into the muscle. Despite her aide, Nil had already moved out of the way, taking advantage of Helis’s snarl to land another blow on his open chest. He had been aiming for a deadly strike but Helis twisted out of the way at the last second and he drew his leg up to kick Nil several feet away. 

Aloy sent arrow after arrow streaming towards him, determined to take him down before he got close to either of them. The fury that she had pushed down for months and months since the Proving that had so devastated her and her people flared to life and she took pride in every drop of his blood that she spilled. 

But despite her hits, Helis rushed at her, leaving Nil behind as he closed in on Aloy. Moving deceptively fast for a man of his size, Helis knocked her bow out of the way and swung his blade down towards her neck. 

Only her thick, reflective armor stopped the sword from tearing into her and she rolled with the blow until she could put a couple feet between them. Helis was now between her and her bow so she drew her lance. 

For a split second, Aloy considered settling into a defensive crouch to wait for him and give Nil an opportunity to strike, but then Helis smiled at her. The same cruel smile he had worn when he had killed Rost. 

Aloy threw aside her strategy and screamed a furious battle cry as she brought her lance down towards Helis’s head. He met it with steel and their dance began. His fight with Rost rose in her mind and she made the same attacks her father had to push him until he stumbled. Her blade sliced deep but the inhuman man rolled to his feet and lashed out, catching Aloy in the shoulder. 

Pain radiated through her arm and Aloy stepped back to give herself some space, to breath, but she stumbled on some of the rubble and fell backwards onto the stones. 

Lightning quick, Helis followed her and he brought his sword up in both hands. Aloy saw the glint of the sun off the metal and braced herself as she scrambled for a weapon, any weapon-

Nil darted between them. 

He tried to parry the blow with his knife, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop Helis from sinking it into the right side of his chest. Aloy watched in horror from less than a foot away as Helis twisted the blade, pressing until she saw the tip of it rip through Nil’s back, blood dripping down to fall on her skin.

But still, Nil stayed standing. A transfixed Aloy watched as he steadied his shaking legs and struck out to sink his knife to the hilt in Helis’s gut. 

Despite the pain he must have felt, Helis only smiled at him. “Foolish boy, to throw away your life for such a meaningless thing. You’ve only delayed her death by a few seconds.”

Nil grinned back, blood shining on his teeth. “She will consume you whole. I only- I only wish I could see her rip your heart from your chest.” With that, Nil threw himself to the side, hand gripping the blade still impaling him to wrench it away from the other warrior.

Scrambling back, Aloy lurched to her feet, grabbing her lance to shove her blade up through a distracted Helis’s ribs to pierce his heart. 

Wide silver eyes met hers, far too similar to the man collapsed on the group beside them. As she sank her own blade deep, Aloy watched first fear then denial race across his face. 

“Impossible. I am chosen. This was not meant to be.” Helis cut himself off as he choked on his blood and Aloy leaned forward, shoving her lance even further past his ribs. 

“Chosen?” she whispered harshly. “Hades only chose you because _you’re_ a fool. A sadistic butcher, too stupid to see you were being used!” Her voice trembled slightly but she pushed on, determined to make him feel as much despair as she was now. “Your whole life was a failure, and soon no one will even remember you. Turn your face to the Sun and think about that.”

Twisting the blade, Aloy ripped it out and watched as Helis fell before her. She waited for a moment before she reached down to pull Nil’s knife out of his side as well. When he didn’t move and a pool of blood started to form around him, Aloy dropped both weapons and turned. 

Nil was exactly where he had been before, laying next to where she had been when he had sacrificed himself for her. Falling to her knees, Aloy pressed her hands to his chest, trying in vain to stop the sluggish bleeding around the sword still embedded in him. 

At her touch, Nil’s hand raised to weakly circle her wrist. Her eyes darted to his face only to find his closed and his breathing shallow and rough. 

“Nil?”

“T-take it out.” 

Aloy shook her head. “I can’t. You’ll bleed to death if I take it out.”

A shaky laugh left his lips. “Death already has me in her arms, huntress. I’d- _ah_ \- I’d prefer to meet her w-without his steel inside me.”

Her vision blurred but Aloy stood. Steadying her hands, she wrapped them around the hilt and pulled on the sword, sliding it out as swiftly and smoothly as she could manage. When it was out, she threw it away and collapsed next to him again. She almost tried to stop the bleeding but it was already slow enough that her heart skipped. 

Instead, she looked to find his silver eyes trained on her. The haunting sadness they held made her heart ache and the tears finally escaped to stream down her face. With shaking, bloody hands, Aloy reached out to gently tug off his headdress before trailing her fingertips down his face. She followed the path with her eyes, memorizing the lines of his face, the tattoos under his eyes, and the smile that still caught at the corners of his lips. 

Nil dragged in a ragged breath and whispered, “I fear you’ll have to go on w-without me. S-someone should-” He broke off on a weak cough and more blood stained his skin after he was done. Aloy brushed her thumb over his lips before leaning down to cover them gently with her own. He sighed against her and she felt the soft graze of his palm on her cheek. 

She pulled back just enough to let him breathe and to rest her forehead against his.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to fight the metal demon by your side.”

Aloy laughed humorlessly. “I should be the one apologizing, Nil. I never should have let him get that close.”

Brushing away one of her errant tears, Nil said, “I’ve lived my entire life at one end- one end of a blade or another, huntress. Do not blame yourself for the way I chose to die.”

“You were supposed to annoy me with your violent metaphors for several more years at least, Nil. What am I- goddess, what am I supposed to do without you?” Aloy’s voice broke as his hand slipped from her face, no longer strong enough to hold it there.

Silver eyes fluttered closed but the ghost of his smile lingered. “Just think of me when your blade meets flesh. And Aloy…” he trailed off.

“Nil? Nil, _please._ Don’t leave me.”

“I love you, Aloy.”

Choking on her tears, Aloy kissed him again. “I love you, too, Nil.”

He opened his eyes, that silver flash tracing her features for the last time, before they closed and he fell silent. Aloy cried out as if she’d been struck and curled around him so that his head was cradled in her lap. 

She stayed there for a few long moments, until his broken breathing stopped and her hot tears no longer streamed down her cheeks. Wiping Nil’s face clean, she gently slipped out from underneath him. Taking out her knife, she laid it over his chest before she took his and placed it on her own belt. Moving slowly, she gathered her bow and her lance and stood over her partner once again. 

Aloy opened her mouth to say something - a goodbye, a promise, anything - but nothing came out. Instead, she turned and ran. 

Flinging herself off the building and onto one of the nearby rappelling lines, Aloy hurtled towards a battle she no longer cared if she outlived. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come yell at me on tumblr @myfeyrelady


End file.
